In a stark play of contrasts, a rich wooden passageway tunnels through this otherwise modern residence made up of small colorless masonry blocks, slicing like a house-shaped cookie cutter through the contemporary structure.

The open space inside this Korean domicile looks like a cast of a traditional home, or a child’s drawing set vertical and extruded through a solid rectilinear block.

Architect Kim Seongyoul of Rieuldorang Atelier (images by Joonhwan Yoon) was inspired by the most elemental and simple idea of a house, and “started designing with the question of how architecture can enter the world of emotion” through geometry and association.

As one passes inside, the void space opens up to reveal light, views, greenery, windows and access points to the home, becoming a kind of central hallway and bridge between interior and exterior spaces.

In the end, the shape also serves as a kind of iconic welcoming beacon, a symbol of home within a home, that shows people where to go, then goes on to provide an overview of everything else the house has to offer.

Two colorful shipping containers set inside a garage-like outer structure form a spacious yet incredibly affordable family home free of the issues that can sometimes come with crate-based architecture, like poor insulation and soundproofing. The containers form two private rooms with loft space on each roof, while the envelope creates a courtyard and encourages air flow.

The outer structure features a section of transparent panels to bring in daylight, saving energy. Large sliding doors open the home to the air in nice weather, and translucent walls help blur the boundaries between outdoors and in a little bit more.

JYA-RCHITECTS designed the home for a family of seven in a rural South Korea village as an alternative to the dangerous, unsanitary housing they were previously living in. Sponsored by the Korea Child Fund, which improves living environments for low-income families, the project took on the challenge of creating a home that was large enough to make the family comfortable while sticking to an extremely tight budget.

The solution is a single-story home with both private and communal spaces, making use of unwanted, cheap, prefabricated and readily available materials. While the envelope was custom-created for the project, it’s easy to imagine this idea being replicated with garage or shed kits, putting possibilities for affordable DIY housing in the hands of people of all walks of life, all over the world.

Notoriously restrictive of the media, the North Korean government surprisingly granted the request of an outsider seeking to shoot a virtually unprecedented video: a continuous car tour of the nation’s largest and capital city.

Aran Pan of Singapore is a photographer and cinematographer given unique permission to document this secretive country, boasting, among other accomplishments, the first series of 3D panoramas shot within its borders and visible to the outside world.

While the film itself is uncut and uncensored, its filming meant traveling with a state-appointed driver, translator, photographer and overseeing official.

The mission of this project, titled DPRK 360, is not to reveal any hidden agenda (or architecture) but simply to convey a sense of place. If anything, the filmmaker hopes his viewers will come away with the idea that there is beauty in North Korea.

Indeed, the streets seem almost unnaturally serene – quiet and nearly empty – and the path traveled (though potentially by design) is quite clean and relatively unremarkable in itself. The buildings, too, are bland if anything, with hints of Asian architectural styles as well as Neoclassical influences.

Korean Twin Towers FAIL? It would definitely appear so, though Dutch architects MVRDV strenuously deny any connection, inspirational or otherwise, with New York City’s lost World Trade Center towers. “The Cloud” is due to rise in Seoul by 2015 – that is, unless a storm of controversy blows the plan away.

Seoul Food for Thought

(image via: DQNplus)

Imagine if you will, an architectural combination of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 (below) and a pair of towering skyscrapers. The result will likely resemble “The Cloud”, an ambitious high-rise apartment building designed by Dutch architects MVRDV. Current plans predict the post-modern structure will occupy a prime portion of the Yongsan Dreamhub project in Seoul, South Korea, by its 2015 completion date.

(images via: Rezendi and The Blaze)

The Yongsan Dreamhub project is an extension of Seoul’s business district; the master plan is one of 40 projects currently overseen by Studio Libeskind.

(images via: Archivenue and DesignBoom)

How incongruous is it that Daniel Libeskind, chosen to to oversee the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, is also associated with a building design that to many invokes the fiery destruction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers on September 11th, 2001.

Big H with ELL to Pay

(images via: Domus and WN.com)

On the face of it, the H-shaped “The Cloud” displays both practical design considerations and a visible form that places it firmly in the so-called “deconstructionist” aesthetic common to many of Daniel Libeskind’s works. Libeskind, however, has no direct connection to this part of the project as it was subcontracted out to Dutch firm MVRDV.

(images via: Architizer and Archinect)

“The Cloud” is no small undertaking. The 54-floor and 60-floor towers rise to heights of 260 meters (853 ft) and 300 meters (984 ft) respectively, offering 128,000 square meters of living space. Roughly halfway up the towers centered around their 27th floors, a 10-story “cloud” connects the two towers in a similar fashion to the ground-level common plinths found in many multi-building developments.

(images via: Archinect and The Pop-Up City)

By raising the plinth skywards, the formerly occupied ground floor space is freed for other purposes, in this case a landscaped public garden designed by Martha Schwartz. Over 14,357 square meters of amenities are located in the connecting cloud including a wellness center, conference center, fitness studio, pools, restaurants and cafes.

(images via: DQNplus and Occult Propaganda)

The top surface of the tower-connecting cloud is also utilized and features an extensive series of easily accessible public and private outdoor spaces, open-air patios, sun decks, gardens and swimming pools. What could possibly go wrong?

Al Clouda?

(images via: Google+ and 911WhoDidIt)

Call it a mass case of pareidolia (seeing faces and images where none exist) or an unintentionally evocative design, but a furor quickly arose when images of “The Cloud” were first published. Regardless of intent, the resemblance of MVRDV’s design to New York’s twin WTC towers in flame is obvious – no matter that said resemblance appears even closer once one is made aware of it.

(images via: UC21blog and VRForums)

MVRDV (architect Winy Maas, above) was seemingly caught unaware by the disturbingly evocative similarity of “The Cloud” to the 9/11 disaster and have strenuously protested claims their design intentionally imitates the lost Twin Towers in flame. To quote a posting on MVRDV’s facebook page, “A real media storm has started and we receive threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse. MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud project evokes regarding 9/11, it was not our intention.”

(images via: Pop-Up City, ABC News Radio and Inhabitat)

The posting continues, “The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city. It is one of many projects in which MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper. It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, the design was not meant to provoke this.”

(image via: Home Theater Forum)

Beyond the above apology, MVRDV is distancing themselves from the ruckus by stating any decisions regarding the implementation of their design are strictly for the client to decide. That being said, Seoul is a long way from Manhattan and those who will live in and around “The Cloud” may not have negative feelings about the building’s appearance. Even so, would you want to live in a building that looks like the scene of a massive terrorist attack – or a 1974 Hollywood disaster movie?

It could be said that the goal of modern art is to surprise viewers and force them to stretch their understanding of “art.” By using completely new methods and/or materials, artists cause us to reevaluate our expectations. That’s exactly what Korean artist Osang Gwon does with his sculptures. They are completely unlike what you’d expect from a sculpture, yet they are as expressive and beautiful as more traditional sculptures.

Gwon’s sculptures aren’t chiseled from marble or cast in metal; they are made up of hundreds of photographs overlaid on a light core. Gwon takes a two-dimensional art form – the photograph – and fuses it with a three-dimensional art form – sculpture – to create an entirely new type of art. His sculptures redefine the very genre he’s working in; in fact, he’s had to defend their status as sculptures on many occasions.

Gwon’s unique style was born out of a simple concern: traditional sculpting materials were too heavy. He decided that he would never create a sculpture that couldn’t be moved by him and one friend. The desire for a more mobile sculpture, coupled with his dual love of sculpture and photography, brought about his unusual artwork. He has named the innovative sculptural style “Deodorant Style.”

The method Gwon uses to create these life-size replicas is complicated and can take two months per sculpture. He starts off taking thousands of photographs of his subject from every imaginable angle. He then sculpts a life-size core out of lightweight foam and begins the painstaking process of attaching the photographs, then coating the entire sculpture. The result is somewhat reminiscent of a cubist painting, but with much more depth and character. He doesn’t aim for ultra-reality; he instead wants to portray the way that everything we see is distorted somehow.

But photo-covered foam isn’t the only medium Osang Gwon is known for. One of his installations, The Flat, was created using images cut out from magazines, then stood up with wire to make sculptures. He arranged the individual sculptures into larger sculptures of grouped objects, then took photographs of the resulting display. This exhibit caused more controversy for the artist, because while the artist defined it as sculpture, many viewers refused to accept it as anything other than photography.

(images via: Arario Gallery)

Gwon’s inspiration often comes from real life. He likes to sculpt people that he knows, like friends and family members, but has often been approached by others. In 2008 he created sculptures of the band Keane to correspond with the release of their album Perfect Symmetry. The artist has said that he doesn’t like to put too much of his own emotions or opinions into his work; rather, he strives to portray the world objectively as it is at that very moment.